


On Saying Screw It And The Future

by niseag



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:07:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26094628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/niseag/pseuds/niseag
Summary: Ten headcanons about Ben and Leslie woven into one narrative.In the end, it all comes back to this: There are no guarantees. There is only saying “screw it” and Leslie Knope.
Relationships: Leslie Knope/Ben Wyatt
Comments: 13
Kudos: 42
Collections: The Leslie/Ben Ten Facts Challenge





	On Saying Screw It And The Future

**Author's Note:**

> This started out as a list of headcanons about Ben and Leslie and ended up a strange, experimental collection of vignettes. Some of these scenes are written exactly how I imagine them playing out; others simply take a fact and riff on it, spinning off in an entirely different direction.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! I had a lot of fun writing it.
> 
> Thank you to Zi for betaing and pushing for a better ending.

**I. MANIFESTING**

Ben Wyatt gets a sexual health test in October 2010.

It’s not routine. Not exactly, anyway. He’s long overdue, but it’s not like he’s had reason to get one of these. And besides, that isn’t why he’s getting tested.

The truth is that it’s wishful thinking.

The truth is that it’s actually borderline delusional.

But at this point he’s left to conclude that this is just what Pawnee does to a person.

***

The test comes back negative, as expected, and he asks for a copy of the printout for his own personal records.

Really what he means is _for someone else’s personal records,_ but he’s not stupid enough to verbalise this even to himself. Sometimes you can jinx these things. And Ben knows an awful lot about jinxes.

He takes a photo of the printout _(you can’t be too careful)_ and then he packs it into a rucksack with several jumpers, a full change of clothes, toilet paper and toothbrush and toothpaste. Stuffs it down into the very bottom of the bag along with a box of condoms and dehydrated snacks that look an awful lot like dog chews.

Tells Leslie he forgot to bring a tent.

***

He’s sitting on Leslie Knope’s couch in May 2011.

She’s straddling his lap, making some very promising sounds and pressing her chest and her stomach and her hips against him and— _oh, god, she knows exactly what she’s doing here._

Sighs deepen into moans and shirts go flying before Ben finally tears himself away from her and drops his forehead against Leslie’s, breathing hard. “Bedroom?” he rasps.

Leslie nods vigorously and presses another kiss against his mouth, hot and dirty, fingers tightening in his hair.

And then, not a second later, she springs away from him, eyes wide like a rabbit’s. She sits back on his thighs, close to his knees, and steadies herself with hands on his shoulders, suddenly serious.

“Ben,” she says as firmly as she can through shallow, ragged breaths. “Wait. We need to talk first.”

His heart sinks. “About…?” He gestures between the two of them. _Our relationship? What this means?_

Leslie nods seriously. “Yeah. Sexual health.”

“Oh,” Ben laughs, relief breaking over him along with a sweet and bubbling sense of pride. He was right, all those months ago. She _would_ want to know before things got more serious. Knowing that he understands her is a good feeling. “Sure,” he smiles, holding her steady by the hips, thumbs skirting the soft skin just above the waistband of her jeans. “Well, I’m easy. I’ve been tested, negative for everything.”

Leslie licks her chapped, puffy lips. “Do you, um, happen to have a copy? Not that I don’t…” She licks her lips a second time. “I just like to be—”

She stops talking because Ben pulls her back to him and kisses her, holding her head with one hand and her waist with the other. “Yeah,” he murmurs, nodding as he breaks away. “I thought you might want…” Except then he remembers: “Ah, fuck. I left it with my Indy stuff,” he sighs. “But I’ve got a photo?”

He doesn’t miss the little smile of appreciation she gives him when he says ‘with my Indy stuff.’ Ben pulls out his phone, scrolls back a good few months and passes it to her. Leslie zooms in and pans around, checking the details. “This isn’t recent,” she frowns, looking at the date. “This is from October.”

“Yeah.” He feels the flush in his face deepen. “So you know in October how we all went camping...”

Leslie reddens. “Oh, god.” She sees Ben’s face fall and grips his shoulder with one hand as she bursts into an inexplicable fit of giggles. “No, no, no, it’s fine, it’s more than—It’s just so…” She drops her head to his shoulder and lets the laughter wash over her. “Okay,” she says after a moment, wiping her eyes. “Hang on, let me just…”

She fishes for her phone in the back pocket of her jeans and lets Ben anchor her while she scrabbles through it. Finally, she presses it into his hands, bracing herself with her arms around his neck and her forehead against his, still giggling softly.

It’s a photograph the same as his. When he sees the date he starts laughing, too.

“November… This isn’t the week we had that non-date at the mural, is it?”

Leslie tightens her arms around his neck and smiles. “Planning and preparation is everything.”

“Hey, I totally agree.”

-

**II. LONG LASTING & EXTREMELY EFFECTIVE**

“So, bedroom?” Ben smiles, when they both finish laughing. “Now we’ve got that sorted?”

_“Yes.”_

They make it upstairs, laying the scene for a marvellous game of hide-and-seek with their clothes in the morning.

Leslie’s on top of him again and Ben has two thoughts simultaneously.

One: _‘She had better not be under the impression that she’s going to be on top all the time,’_ and two: _‘Condom.’_

He verbalises the second thought as Leslie’s—well, if they were wearing clothes it would be called dry humping, and that is just a fact. But they’re not wearing clothes and this is getting kind of dangerous.

Leslie lifts her head from his chest, where she had been doing wonderful, incredible things to his nipple with her teeth and tongue. “Hm?”

“Condom?” he repeats.

“Oh, you want to?”

“Wait, you don’t?”

“I’m good for birth control,” she says, moving to kiss his neck. “So we don’t _need_ to.”

“Planning and preparation, huh?”

“Mmhmm,” Leslie sighs.

***

As it turns out, Ben doesn’t need to say a word to Leslie about who’s on top next time. He finds very quickly that she’s more than willing to share.

***

Lying together afterwards, Ben plays with Leslie’s hair and enjoys the feeling of her in his arms, soft and sleepy for once. She’s always so _tireless,_ charging around with the world on her shoulders and fire in her belly. He thinks about earlier, conjures an absurd image of Leslie fussing over birth control pills and can’t suppress the chuckle that bubbles up through his chest. 

She shifts against him and looks up, a little on edge. “What?”

“I really can’t see you being on the pill,” he confesses, twirling a stray curl around his finger. “I’m just imagining you remembering to take it at the same time every day and it’s kind of funny. Like your phone alarm goes off and interrupts a late night meeting with Howser or something. You must be using something else, right?”

“The fact that you know that about the pill is really doing it for me,” Leslie mutters. “But no, you’re right. It would be a nightmare. Actually, it was a nightmare. My mom put me on it when I was in high school because I had terrible acne and I wasn’t even _having_ sex and… yeah.”

“Okay, so definitely not the pill. IUD?”

Leslie blinks. “How’d you guess that so quick?”

“Well, you’re terrible with needles—”

“How do you know that?”

“I was there when Ann put the cannula on you when you had the flu. You were not happy.”

“Oh, god. How badly did I abuse her?”

Ben smiles. “Pretty badly.”

“Oh no. Poor Ann.”

“Anyway, that rules out the implant. The others seem kind of fiddly or unreliable, not your kind of thing. And besides, IUDs are long lasting and extremely effective and if that doesn’t say ‘Leslie Knope’ I don’t know what does.”

“Long lasting and extremely effective, huh?” Leslie says, smiling mischievously.

“Well, they are.”

“More like you are.”

“Good lord.”

-

**III. THE BOX (PART I)**

They are in what Leslie calls ‘the bubble’ and what Ben calls ‘bliss.’

Pawnee is decidedly off limits for most activities that don’t involve Leslie’s bedroom and this Saturday has found them both at a sprawling country market some half hour’s drive past Snerling.

The air is thick with a thousand smells; coffee and fresh-baked bread and roasting meat and blooming flowers and oils and honeys and preserves.

Stalls stretch through a paddock for what must be the better part of a mile in both directions. The goods are exactly what you would expect from a rambling country market. Vendors sell german pastries and fossicked gems, alpaca wool socks and totes made from old records and crochet.

It takes Leslie all of ten minutes to find a waffle truck with a ten-foot line.

“Nooo, you go ahead,” she insists. “Look around! I won’t be long. Just head that way,” she says, pointing down one of the sprawling rows. “I’ll catch up with you near the goat’s milk soap stand. You can’t miss it.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah!” Leslie grins. And then something seems to occur to her; her face clouds over and she tugs his sleeve, pulling him down to her. “But Ben,” she says grimly, “there’s a terrible, terrible man named Elrick on that row. He sells Italian food and I swear to god, if you even _think_ about buying a calzone from him…”

 _(The owner’s brother-in-law is from Eagleton and it seems there’s some history there that goes well beyond the usual opposition to Eagleton_ or _calzones. Ben doesn’t want to know.)_

Ben smiles, kisses her and promises he won’t go near it with a barge pole. He buys a calzone from the next truck that sells them after Elrick’s and considers it a personal victory.

He eats as he strolls, looks at oddities here and there, thinks about buying an R.E.M. corkwood coaster and eventually decides against it, wonders why he never went to markets like these in the eleven years he spent on a protracted tour of rural Indiana.

You could spend a day here and never see everything.

It’s kind of amazing.

Children dash through the gaps in the stalls, carrying helium balloons in the shapes of lions and cackling as they chase one another. Face painters press colour and glitter to tiny, gleeful faces. Parents clutch coffees and toddlers and dogs and bags of farm-fresh vegetables.

He dodges out of the way of a large pram packed with not one but two children and the woman pushing it gives him a grateful smile and a wave.

Before Pawnee he might have felt out of place here. A ghost on the road. No house to adorn with any of the trinkets on sale. One man in a sea of families and all this well-worn love. 

But he isn’t here alone. 

Leslie is here too, somewhere. He smiles at the thought of her delighted by everything she sees, weaving through the stalls and the crowds. Smiles at the thought that she is his in this wonderful if liminal way.

And that reminds him: goat’s milk soap.

He starts paying attention to the stalls again. Amethyst smoking pipes. Hand-bound journals. Wooden wares. Ben’s eyes trail over the whittled spoons and dishes and spice racks, all finished with clean lines and a nice stain and polish.

And finally: a small, palm-sized wooden box.

He almost walks past it, except that his eye catches on the word ‘Pawnee’ in the sign next to it that reads ‘Box, Pawnee Eastern Red Cedar, $80.’

He stops.

Picks the box up, feels the weight of it sitting perfectly in his hand. It’s solid construction, beautifully finished with shining brass hinges.

Suddenly taken by fantasy, Ben opens it and imagines what it might hold. Maybe he’s jumping the gun here, but then again, he’s got plausible deniability on his side.

It’s just a box, after all. Only a box. He might put anything inside.

A medal, or a watch, or a rare coin.

He licks his lips, tells himself he’s crazy for even thinking it.

Tells himself it’s only been a few weeks.

But a gutsier part of him whispers that really, it hasn’t. It has been the better part of a year. And there’s nothing wrong with being sure. He isn’t eighteen anymore, and faith isn’t the same thing as recklessness.

So screw it. 

He buys the box.

-

**IV. HOARDER**

Ben sits on the couch, watching with great interest while Leslie kneels over her coffee table and glues photographs of Li’l Sebastian into a book. She holds a photograph of herself and Ben and the mini horse, smiling at it with bright eyes before she takes scissors to it and trims the background, ready to set it into the spread of pictures and paper before her.

“When did you get into scrapbooking?”

“When I was ten.”

“Did you get a kit for your birthday or something?” he teases.

“No,” Leslie says, sitting up and looking at him seriously. “You really wanna know?”

He tilts his head curiously. “Is there a story?”

Leslie nods and hums for a moment then gets up, squeezes his hand absently and wanders off to her spare room. She returns moments later with an armful of photo albums. Her baby photos.

She sits down on the couch and wordlessly passes him the stack, watching with a small, wistful smile as he flips through page after page of photos of Leslie doing a hundred different things: smiling, crying, taking a bath, grinning toothlessly at a puppy _(not hers),_ chewing on a toy telephone, running into a pile of leaves on tiny doughy legs.

Baby photos become childhood photos and there are several of Leslie and a cat that appears when Leslie is around five years old and vanishes by the time she’s nine. _(“Oh, Garfield. My mom got tired of him and took him to the shelter. Dad was so mad when he found out.”)_ Lots of pictures of Leslie in pageants, Leslie winning medals.

“Notice anything?” Leslie asks, as they get to her tenth birthday.

“They’re all you?”

“Yeah.”

“I don’t get it.”

“There are none of my friends. None of my grandparents or my—”

And then Ben understands. She doesn’t have any photographs of her father.

“Oh, Leslie.”

When he shifts the albums aside and pulls her into his lap, she cries for a long time.

-

**THE BOX (PART II)**

Ben looks at the button one last time before he closes the lid of the box.

That red cedar box that might have meant the future.

Well, it still does mean that, he supposes.

_The future._

Just not theirs.

-

**V. WATCHING FOR THE PLOT**

They’re curled up on the couch with Peter Coyote murmuring in the background and a bottle of wine open on the counter when Ben plucks up the courage to talk about it.

“Can I tell you something?”

“Mmhmm.”

“It’s kind of a big thing. And if we’re doing this for real I want you to know, you know?”

“It’s okay. Whatever it is, you can tell me.”

He takes a breath, lets it out again. “I’m into guys.”

Leslie smiles and brushes a bit of hair out of his face. “Oh. I know that.”

“You what?”

“You said you had gay thoughts on live TV, babe. And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about yourself but for a guy who complains about the plot holes constantly you really like watching Indiana Jones. I just kind of assumed.” Ben stares. “What? Was that wrong of me? Oh, god. Should I have brought it up? Oh, god, babe. I’m sorry. I mean, you hadn’t said anything else about it and I didn’t want to make it a big thing but—”

Ben kisses her.

“Stop. You’re perfect.”

-

**VI. ANN PERKINS**

They’re still on the couch. Leslie’s playing with the string of his hoodie, pensive.

“I kissed a girl in college,” Leslie says after a while, glancing up at him with large, nervous eyes. From anyone else or said differently or in another moment it might feel like a cheap comparison, a feeble attempt at relating to him. But it doesn’t. There’s a real anxiety in Leslie and it’s plain that she is working up to something bigger. Ben squeezes her to reassure her and she tugs at the knot of the string, biting her lip. She fiddles and shifts and sighs and frowns and then, finally, she whispers, “I had a crush on Ann.”

It is immediately clear to Ben that she hasn’t been struggling with this or holding it back because Ann is a woman. Especially not since she knew all along that he’s also into men. No, she has been holding it back because it’s _Ann._

Ann, who _of course_ Leslie is a little bit in love with. Of course she is. He isn’t even really surprised. It’s Ann.

And that’s the wonderful thing about Leslie, isn’t it? That so many things can be so important to her and somehow it doesn’t cheapen any part of it. That her heart expands the way the universe does, vast and infinite and giving. Ben tightens his arms around her. 

Leslie swallows and continues, “When we first met, I had a crush on her then.” She shakes her head. “I never told her. Or anyone else. And it passed. She went out with Mark and I just... had to look at my life and my friends and decide what was important, and I decided being her friend was important. So.”

“You know,” Ben says slowly, “if there’s a part of you that loves Ann…” 

Leslie shakes her head, smiles. “You know what’s funny?”

“What?”

“Ann broke up with Mark just before you came to Pawnee. And yeah, when she told me she’d decided she was going to end it, part of me wondered if maybe the feelings would come back. But Ben, the thing is: after you walked into the parks department I never thought about her like that again. I never wondered again. Like I felt _so_ strongly about you—”

“About hating me?”

“Yes! Exactly. You just got into my head somehow. And I didn’t even have time to worry about anything except work and… and you. Aside from the actual budget and trying to put Pawnee back together, all I could think about was hating you. And then not exactly hating you and being confused by you and trying to beat you. And then starting to like you. And then liking you. And then loving you, and then missing you and wanting—”

Yeah. He’s kissing her again.

-

**THE BOX (PART III)**

When Leslie presents him with his box and a model Washington Monument and a future all his own, his first thought is that he couldn’t love her more.

His second thought is that he’s glad she has given him the box freely.

He’d hate to have to steal it.

And he’s pretty damn sure he’s going to need it, one of these days.

-

**VII. BEN & ROBERT**

“Hi, Robert. I’m Ben Wyatt. I’m sorry if this is a little weird. I just felt like I couldn’t be in Florida and not… No, that’s not—God. Fuck. I mean, why am I lying to a dead person? Okay, okay. The truth is I badly wanted to come here. I have for a while, but it’s kind of a weird thing to say, ‘Hey, would you like to go on a holiday to Florida to see your father’s grave? Because I don’t know if I even believe his essential soul is intact in this universe but if it is then I’d really like to meet him.’ Or not meet him. Or—whatever, you get the gist. But I mean, how would you imagine having that conversation? That’s kind of weird, isn’t it? I’m sorry. That isn’t the point. Anyway, this week I just happened to be in this part of Florida and Jen just happened to throw this crazy curveball and it worked out like this. And here I am. I hope it’s okay that I came alone. I just really wanted to… Look. So here’s the thing. I’m kind of madly in love with your daughter. I don’t know if I believe in Heaven or angels or whatever, but if you can see her I really hope you’re proud. And if you can’t see her then you’ve got to know that she’s the most incredible person I’ve ever met. And I’m not just saying that because I’m supposed to. You know, it’s not one of those relationships where you’re obligated to say shit like that. I am hopelessly in love with her. Like I can see a lifetime where I’d never met her in intricate detail and just being able to picture it is like visiting purgatory. Like I spent nearly twenty years of my life punishing myself for some stupid shit I did when I was a kid and somehow I didn’t see that I could just stop. I could just stop hitting myself. Like I wandered into Pawnee one day and there she was and she had this… this fire in her that I didn’t even believe existed anymore. And it was like suddenly I could see colour again. Like I’d just been wandering around asleep and then I woke up from this… I wouldn’t even call it a nightmare. I guess I would call it a coma. Anyway, she wakes me up and at first I’m kind of furious about the whole thing. Like how dare you question what I’m doing, you know? Like who gave you the right? But the thing is, I used to be like that once. I used to believe in all the things Leslie does, like building things and community and people are inherently good and it’s always worth trying, and somewhere in all the bullshit I sold myself, I lost it. And no one I met bothered reminding me it was possible until her. And the thing is, it’s not like she did it on purpose or like I’m the only one. That’s the most incredible thing about her. It’s not a conscious thing. She just is. Like light. There’s me and there’s her best friend Ann and there’s April and maybe even Ron. We’re all reformed cynics. Although April and Ron would probably fight me on that. I guess it’s a path. Me and Ann are further down the path. So when I say I’m in love with her and I’d just been looking for her this whole time... it’s not like a gratitude, oh I’m a poor broken man and you saved me from myself thing. That isn’t it at all. Because she didn’t. She yelled at me and called me an ass, actually. When we first met she hated me and I’m telling you she is incorrigible. No compunctions about it. None. Never mind that I could’ve fired her, she hated me and that was that. It was kind of amazing. Anyway, it wasn’t until I came around to myself that she stopped. So it’s like this. She’s this ball of light, like a sun or something, and seeing her go about her life makes you want to be better just because she’s there proving to the rest of us all that it’s possible. And you know, the crazy thing is, she had a way more fucked up childhood than me—I mean, you died. Like you actually died. And she turned out… well, she’s Leslie. Like if you were a shitty person you’d kind of hate her for turning out as amazingly as she did. I didn’t go through half what she did and I spent ten years being so awful I got death threats, so what does that say? I don’t know. You know, when I said I don’t feel obligated to say Leslie is the most incredible person, I guess you probably wouldn’t know much about feeling obligated. Like why would you even think… What I’m saying—badly—is I know how much you loved her. And she adored you. I see her talk about you and it’s not something I can even comprehend. Like I see that look on her face and I think, fuck, is this real? Is this what that kind of love looks like? Is this what all of that was supposed to look like? I mean will our—? Wow. Okay. That’s… wow. You know, it’s so fucking cruel that it was you. Like of all the people and all the fathers and daughters in the world it had to be you. And it had to be her. And it’s just… God. God. You know, I really wish I could have met you. I think we’d have gotten on. And I might’ve given you a decent run on the old board games. Leslie says you were super into Scrabble but I think you’d have liked Catan. And I’d have won your grudging respect by dominating you at it. I mean, it wouldn’t have been personal. I’m just really good at Catan. Or now I think of it, maybe that tack only works on—Oh, god. Actually, let’s not go there. If you know what I’m talking about I hope you’re amused. I should’ve listened to Leslie. We should just have gone to Belize and gone SCUBA diving with the whale sharks. Hey, is it spitting a little? Is that rain? Sorry. You have no idea. Hold on, is that… Did she just—? Unbelievable. Hang on. Excuse me, I’ll just be—EXCUSE ME! Yes, yeah, you. Could you please clean up your dog’s shit? I don’t know if you noticed but this is a cemet—God, take this then. Don’t you carry bags? I don’t care if it’s starting to rain, is a little respect too much to ask? God, this would never happen in Pawnee. Oh, that’s great. Thank you very much. Right. Hi. Sorry about that. Can you believe that? See, this right here. This illustrates my point. Before Leslie I would probably have let that woman walk away and left the dog shit on someone’s grandma’s grave. And look, if you want to know what Leslie would have done I can tell you she wouldn’t have caused a scene in a cemetery. She would have just quietly picked up the dog shit and thrown it away. Probably said they were Eagleton scum under her breath. Never mind we’re in Florida. Eagleton has an airport, Ben, she’d say. They probably flew here first class, sipping free Dom Perignon. I don’t know if Leslie hated Eagleton as a kid, but you should probably know she’s still pretty mad that you and Marlene let the raccoons drive you out of Pawnee the day she was born. I’d say she’s still carrying a bit of a grudge. So you know, if there’s a Heaven or whatever, keep an eye out for the next century or so. Anyway. Leslie. So this is the thing. I’m supposed to be moving back to Pawnee, but there’s this job thing that’s come up with Jen. It’s a really good job and I think I’d be good at it. But it would keep me away for a long time and it’s already been a long time. Like in the time since Leslie and I first got together we’ve spent precisely zero days as a normal couple. It’s all been sneaking around or being broken up or running a campaign. And it means I know we can withstand adversity but I don’t know that can means should, you know? What would you say if you were here? Well, I never met you. I have no idea. But I guess if I had the kind of father I could talk to about a situation like this I’d want him to say something like… Like, Ben, your first obligation is to make yourself happy. You have this idea in your head about what success looks like, about what you’re supposed to do with your life, but the truth is that none of that means jack shit if you’re not happy. Put down Game of Thrones. And change your username, for god’s sake. You’re a person, not a redemption arc. So take that obligation seriously. Do the thing that makes you happy. Everything else is just... noise. Huh. Well you know, that’s actually pretty good advice. So I don’t know if that was you or me or whatever but… Okay. Okay, okay. Look. Robert, I kind of came here because I wanted to say something to you. In lieu of being able to ask. Which I know Leslie would hate, so it’s probably a good thing I’m not. So here it is. I’d been dating Leslie maybe two weeks when I bought a box. Pawnee red cedar. I knew back then. I knew. I’ve broken up with her with that box and she’s sent me to Washington DC with that box and I swear to god the next time it sees daylight… Robert Knope, I am deeply, ridiculously in love with your daughter and I have every intention of marrying her, if she wants that. So I can only hope you’d approve.”

-

**VIII. ON SAYING SCREW IT AND THE FUTURE**

By the time he gets back to Washington, Ben is nine-tenths of the way resolved to propose to Leslie the moment he sets foot in Pawnee.

The other ten percent—the ten percent where thoughts like _“if I had the kind of father I could talk to,”_ and _“those relationships where you feel obligated,”_ loom sinister in the dark—this hesitation comes out to play as he sits at his desk in DC, beerless and contemplative.

The fact of the proposal isn’t the thing in question.

It’s the timing.

Every time he ventures into thinking about marriage—and the thought crosses his mind more times than he can count—this ever-dwindling but malicious part of him whispers and scolds him for his hubris, spinning scenes of disaster from his own memory until he backs down. One day he is sure that he’ll be able to think about marrying Leslie without this saboteur gnashing away in the periphery, and he’s always felt that he ought to wait until he’s sure he’s past all this before he takes the leap. Like he ought to be confident and not be scared.

The truth is Ben has no idea what a good marriage looks like. Henry never married. Steph is divorced. And then there’s ground zero itself: his parents. It was so easy to be a skeptic. They made it so easy to be one. 

But what is also true is that Ben is a believer. He thinks back on his time in Pawnee, with Leslie, and he thinks about how there are no guarantees.

He thinks about space and about the multiverse and he sits with the idea that there are infinite universes out there that he will never know. In a million of them his parents had a perfect marriage and Ben never found Leslie, or he ruined everything or she did or they blew it to hell spectacularly together. But then again, there are a million universes where they find each other in a million unexpected ways and make it work against all the odds. Perhaps they come together on some Pacific island or in the apocalypse or in a homespun musical on dollar-store Broadway. Maybe they meet while trekking Kilimanjaro or in the trenches of war. Perhaps they fall in love and fall apart and yet find something so unfinished between them that it’s impossible to stay away. Or maybe they come together and never part again.

The point is there are a billion, trillion ways this could go at any moment in time. 

In the end, it all comes back to this: There are no guarantees. There is only hoping and trusting and having the courage to leap and knowing she will be there beside him.

Only saying “screw it” and the future.

-

**THE BOX (PART IV)**

Ben holds the box in his hand, thinks of the day he bought it and the feeling of not being alone.

Thinks of home. Thinks of Leslie’s lips on his.

Thinks, _finally._

-

**IX. GROUNDHOG DAY**

A couple of years after Leslie becomes Governor, Ben runs for and wins a seat in the US Senate.

It’s 2035 and they’re at a big, spare-no-expenses, corporate schmooze Democratic fundraiser in DC and like clockwork Jennifer Barkley barges in on too-big heels and too much cocaine and pulls him aside for another one of her indiscreet chats about the slate of bozos _(her words, not Ben’s)_ gearing up for the primaries.

“Did you hear York has thrown her hat in the ring now? York! From New York! It’s a disaster. Not just the tragic double York thing but, you know, her whole…”

“‘Multi-payer health’ schtick? Yeah.”

“Exactly. What is it? The twenty-tens? Anyway, if York’s in anyone’s in as far as I’m concerned. What do you think, Wyatt?”

“About York? Well, she’s—”

“About running.”

***

“So, interesting night,” Leslie muses on the car ride home, looking a little shell-shocked.

“You could say that.”

“I heard York’s running.”

“Oh no.”

“I’ll say. Anyway, Ben, seriously—”

“Babe,” he interrupts, one eyebrow raised. “You wouldn’t happen to have been approached by the DNC, would you?”

“The DNC? God no,” she laughs. “Not after last summer. By Kaley.”

Ben can’t help it. He groans. “Happy groundhog day, honey.”

-

**X. THE RESOLUTE DESK**

Ben charges headlong through a still-not-quite-familiar office looking around like a man deranged. He’s done it. Finally. He’s got to find Leslie. Right now. It’s a matter of utmost importance.

And then all of a sudden Leslie materialises across the policy bullpen, a little pink and smiling.

“You did it?”

“Done. All afternoon.”

“All afternoon,” she affirms.

“Thank god. Come on, then.”

They rush through the rabbit warren of bullpens and meeting rooms and solitary offices.

“Later, Josh!” Leslie shouts, batting off a staffer, while Ben yells, “I said tomorrow!” deflecting a senior PA. They giggle and duck as they punch a shortcut through an unused conference room and spill into the office, locking two of the doors before they realise they’re not alone.

“Oh god.” That’s both of them.

Leslie saves face first, so while Ben goes to draw the blinds she makes herself busy shooing the Secret Service agents who, two months in, still don’t quite seem to know what to make of her.

“Holy god,” she sighs, locking the last door as the last blinds fall over the windows. She turns to face into the curved room, looking from Ben to the desk with dark eyes, glinting in the lamplight. _“Finally.”_

“Finally,” he agrees, coming to her, placing his hands on her hips. He backs her slowly through the office, avoiding the carpet and the coffee table and the couches, until he has her against the desk. “Well,” he smiles. “This is a long time coming.”

“Two months! How did we go two months?”

“I was going to say twenty-odd years.” Ben takes her face in both hands and kisses her deep and swift and just a little dirty. He runs his hands down her throat, leaving her whimpering as he trails over her shoulders, down her arms; gives her hands a quick squeeze before taking her by the waist and pulling her back to him, kissing her so thoroughly he feels her go a little weak. Her arms go around his neck and into the hair at the back of his head, greyer now, tugging as much because he likes it as because she needs an anchor as his hands smooth over her ass, down her thighs and catch at the hem of her skirt.

“I like this,” he murmurs.

“Just for you,” Leslie smiles against his mouth. She catches his hand and brings it around to her inner thigh, dragging it upwards and gasping as his fingers dance across her warm skin, only getting warmer the higher he gets. She only lets go when she’s sure he’s got the idea, that he’ll keep going without her guidance. Of course he does. He sighs at the feel of her, burning hot, and sighs turn into a deep guttural moan as he reaches the center of her and finds nothing but silky, wet skin.

“Leslie,” he gasps. Ben’s speechless for a moment. Really truly speechless. “Leslie,” he says again, dumbfounded. “You’re…”

“Mmhmm,” she hums, pulling his mouth back to hers for a moment, smirking coyly into the kiss. “Well, I told you to hurry.”

“Jesus Christ. And you’re soaked. I mean, seriously, Leslie…”

She groans. “Hurry _up.”_

“You’re sure you want to? In here?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve never been more sure.”

“Great.”

“Wait, you’re not getting cold feet, are you? I’m telling you all of them have, Ben,” she says seriously, lowering her voice. _“All_ of them.”

“Well it’s just—I mean, how confident are you about the soundproofing?”

“Ben,” she whines. “I don’t _care_ about the soundproofing. Come on. We’ve talked about doing this. For a long time! Planning and preparation, Ben. It’s sexy.”

Ben glances around the room, all closed doors and covered windows. And honestly now they’re in here alone, he really isn’t convinced about the soundproofing. There is a part of him that’s a little too in awe of the station and what it all symbolises, a part of him that’s still somewhat in disbelief about this whole thing and how it came about, like if they put one foot out of line it will all come crashing down.

But then he looks to Leslie, as he often does. She’s right in front of him, right in front of the Resolute Desk, gazing up at him with wanton anticipation and outright glee, face flushed and chest heaving. Yes, they’ve talked about this for a long time. And yes, he wants her now. And she's never led him wrong before. So who cares about the soundproofing? He slides his free hand into her hair, pulling her close. Murmurs an _okay_ against her lips as he takes a step forward and pushes her onto the plane of the desk.

In the end, it all comes back to this: There are no guarantees.

There is only saying “screw it” and Leslie Knope.

**Author's Note:**

> Here are the list of facts that went into this:
> 
> 1\. Ben gets an STI test and keeps the printed copy because it seems like the kind of thing Leslie would want.  
> 2\. Leslie has an IUD.  
> 3\. Ben buys the box early in their relationship, intending to propose with it one day.  
> 4\. Leslie hoards memories because she has few of her father.  
> 5\. Ben watches Indiana Jones "for the plot."  
> 6\. Leslie had a crush on Ann.  
> 7\. Ben visits Robert's grave when he's in Florida.  
> 8\. Ben contemplates his parents' marriage as he prepares to propose to Leslie.  
> 9\. Both Ben and Leslie get approached to run for President.  
> 10\. After one of them is elected, they have sex on the Resolute Desk.


End file.
